IAN BREMMER: The US Has To Attack Syria

Syria's President Bashar
al-Assad waves as he arrives with Syrian Defense Minister General
Ali Habib (C) and Chief of Staff General Dawoud Rajha to attend a
dinner to honour army officers on the 65th Army Foundation
anniversary in Damascus August 1, 2010.REUTERS/Sana

And according to one eminent geopolitical expert, the choice is
largely unavoidable at this point.

Ian Bremmer, president
of the Eurasia Group, told
Business Insider that the U.S. "has to respond given
international norms against the use of chemical weapons" because
the "costs of not responding at this point are too high."

Those costs include letting down key allies, losing credibility
on a key human rights issue, and condoning the
tactical use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad or other rulers.

"The U.S. is determining the minimum threshold of force for
enforcing the 'red line' — and they'll surely make explicit the
consequences of further chemical strikes, etc. — without full
intervention in the war," Bremmer told BI.

The U.S. has decided that it does not need United Nations or NATO
approval for a strike,
Kevin Baron of Defense One reports. Instead, it will attempt
rely on backing from a "coalition of the willing" that includes
the
Arab League and
Turkey as well as France, the UK, and Germany.

“In certain circumstances we can bypass it, but international law
does exist," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told Europe 1
radio on Monday. "The only one that is not on the table is to not
do anything.”

Bremmer echoed Fabius' point that the most recent chemical attack
— which killed hundreds and
caused "neurotoxic symptoms" in thousands — cannot be
ignored.

"When Germany says something has to be done, something has to be
done," Bremmer said.

Harmer, a former U.S. Navy planner who creates
highly-detailed proposals for surgical strikes,
argues that the reported strike plan "will be ineffective
unless it is part of a coherent, properly resourced effort
towards achieving clearly articulated U.S. strategic aims in
Syria."

This may be because, as Bremmer told BI, that "it is not
necessarily in U.S. or Israeli interest for the action to lead to
the toppling of Assad ... but that's not the case of many
countries (e.g. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar) that are aligned
with the US in taking military action."

Nevertheless, that doesn't mean the U.S. doesn't have strategic
objectives. Harmer explains them as "helping the moderate and
more secular elements of the opposition defeat both the
Iranian-backed Assad regime and the al Qaeda-affiliated
extremists who threaten to hijack the rebellion."

"It is extremely hard to keep intervention limited — that's why
the Obama administration has been so unwilling to engage over the
past two year," Bremmer told BI. "That reality hasn't suddenly
changed with the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian
government."